For a few years I ran various blogs on different topics but I soon grew tired of sites continuously barraging people with ads and click bait. In 2014 I decided to set up my own site and committed to making it an ad free space so I could write in peace. The result was all my random thoughts, opinions and interests coming to the one place, thechampsvoice.com

Social media presents its own problems with sharing content and the modern day blogger has become a slave to algorithms. For example Facebook prevent you from reaching your own audience unless you’re willing to boost posts, which in effect is paying to advertise posts to reach people you’ve already connected with.

With the start of a new year what I’m looking to do is to set up a mailing list, so if you’d like to receive a monthly letter from the site feel free to drop me a mail at thechampsvoice@gmail.com or hit the subscribe button.

This is a shortened version of a very interesting article taken from washingtonmonthly, written by Roger McNamee (@Moonalice) originally titled How to Fix Facebook – Before it Fixes Us

In my thirty-five-year career in technology investing, I have never made a bigger contribution to a company’s success than I made at Facebook. It was my proudest accomplishment. Not surprisingly, Facebook became my favorite app. I checked it constantly, and I became an expert in using the platform by marketing my rock band, Moonalice, through a Facebook page.

Facebook, Google, and other social media platforms make their money from advertising. As with all ad-supported businesses, that means advertisers are the true customers, while audience members are the product. Until the past decade, media platforms were locked into a one-size-fits-all broadcast model. Success with advertisers depended on producing content that would appeal to the largest possible audience.

Whenever you log into Facebook, there are millions of posts the platform could show you. The key to its business model is the use of algorithms, driven by individual user data, to show you stuff you’re more likely to react to.

Algorithms that maximize attention give an advantage to negative messages. The result is that the algorithms favor sensational content over substance.

It took Brexit for me to begin to see the danger of this dynamic. I’m no expert on British politics, but it seemed likely that Facebook might have had a big impact on the vote because one side’s message was perfect for the algorithms and the other’s wasn’t.

The “Leave” campaign made an absurd promise—there would be savings from leaving the European Union that would fund a big improvement in the National Health System—while also exploiting xenophobia by casting Brexit as the best way to protect English culture and jobs from immigrants. It was too-good-to-be-true nonsense mixed with fearmongering.

Meanwhile, the Remain campaign was making an appeal to reason. Leave’s crude, emotional message would have been turbocharged by sharing far more than Remain’s.

I did not see it at the time, but the users most likely to respond to Leave’s messages were probably less wealthy and therefore cheaper for the advertiser to target: the price of Facebook (and Google) ads is determined by auction, and the cost of targeting more upscale consumers gets bid up higher by actual businesses trying to sell them things.

As a consequence, Facebook was a much cheaper and more effective platform for Leave in terms of cost per user reached. And filter bubbles would ensure that people on the Leave side would rarely have their questionable beliefs challenged. Facebook’s model may have had the power to reshape an entire continent.

The most important tool used by Facebook and Google to hold user attention is filter bubbles. The use of algorithms to give consumers “what they want” leads to an unending stream of posts that confirm each user’s existing beliefs.

We now know, for instance, that the Russians indeed exploited topics like Black Lives Matter and white nativism to promote fear and distrust, and that this had the benefit of laying the groundwork for the most divisive presidential candidate in history, Donald Trump. The Russians appear to have invested heavily in weakening the candidacy of Hillary Clinton during the Democratic primary by promoting emotionally charged content to supporters of Bernie Sanders and Jill Stein, as well as to likely Clinton supporters who might be discouraged from voting.

Once the nominations were set, the Russians continued to undermine Clinton with social media targeted at likely Democratic voters. We also have evidence now that Russia used its social media tactics to manipulate the Brexit vote. A team of researchers reported in November, for instance, that more than 150,000 Russian-language Twitter accounts posted pro-Leave messages in the run-up to the referendum.

We hypothesize that the Russians were able to manipulate tens of millions of American voters for a sum less than it would take to buy an F-35 fighter jet.

In the case of Facebook and Google, the algorithms have flaws that are increasingly obvious and dangerous.

Thanks to government’s laissez-faire approach to regulation, the internet platforms were able to pursue business strategies that would not have been allowed in prior decades. No one stopped them from using free products to centralize the internet and then replace its core functions. No one stopped them from siphoning off the profits of content creators. No one stopped them from gathering data on every aspect of every user’s internet life. No one stopped them from amassing market share not seen since the days of Standard Oil. No one stopped them from running massive social and psychological experiments on their users. No one demanded that they police their platforms. It has been a sweet deal.

Facebook and Google are now so large that traditional tools of regulation may no longer be effective. The European Union challenged Google’s shopping price comparison engine on antitrust grounds, citing unfair use of Google’s search and AdWords data. The harm was clear: most of Google’s European competitors in the category suffered crippling losses. The most successful survivor lost 80 percent of its market share in one year. The EU won a record $2.7 billion judgment—which Google is appealing.

Unfortunately, there is no regulatory silver bullet. The scope of the problem requires a multi-pronged approach.

First, we must address the resistance to facts created by filter bubbles. Polls suggest that about a third of Americans believe that Russian interference is fake news, despite unanimous agreement to the contrary by the country’s intelligence agencies. Helping those people accept the truth is a priority. I recommend that Facebook, Google, Twitter, and others be required to contact each person touched by Russian content with a personal message that says, “You, and we, were manipulated by the Russians. This really happened, and here is the evidence.” The message would include every Russian message the user received.

This idea, which originated with my colleague Tristan Harris, is based on experience with cults. When you want to deprogram a cult member, it is really important that the call to action come from another member of the cult, ideally the leader.

Second, the chief executive officers of Facebook, Google, Twitter, and others—not just their lawyers—must testify before congressional committees in open session. Forcing tech CEOs like Mark Zuckerberg to justify the unjustifiable, in public—without the shield of spokespeople or PR spin—would go a long way to puncturing their carefully preserved cults of personality in the eyes of their employees.

We also need regulatory fixes. Here are a few ideas.

First, it’s essential to ban digital bots that impersonate humans.

Second, the platforms should not be allowed to make any acquisitions until they have addressed the damage caused to date, taken steps to prevent harm in the future, and demonstrated that such acquisitions will not result in diminished competition.

Third, the platforms must be transparent about who is behind political and issues-based communication. The Honest Ads Act is a good start

Fourth, the platforms must be more transparent about their algorithms. Users deserve to know why they see what they see in their news feeds and search results. Consumers should also be able to see what attributes are causing advertisers to target them.

Fifth, the platforms should be required to have a more equitable contractual relationship with users. Facebook, Google, and others have asserted unprecedented rights with respect to end-user license agreements (EULAs). If there are terms you choose not to accept, your only alternative is to abandon use of the product. For Facebook, where users have contributed 100 percent of the content, this non-option is particularly problematic. All software platforms should be required to offer a legitimate opt-out, one that enables users to stick with the prior version if they do not like the new EULA.

Sixth, we need a limit on the commercial exploitation of consumer data by internet platforms. Customers understand that their “free” use of platforms like Facebook and Google gives the platforms license to exploit personal data. The problem is that platforms are using that data in ways consumers do not understand, and might not accept if they did.

​When I first started writing someone asked me why bloggers feel every random event in their life is suddenly worth reading about. I’ve always bore that in mind somewhat so I try to keep things relevant, but at the same time I’m not being commissioned to write so the boundaries of the page are limited to my life and my personal experiences.Lately I’ve been listening to this band quite a lot and this one song called ‘London Can Take It’ seemed particularly significant in the last few days, so I thought I would share.

The following s a short review from The Guardian of the band called ‘Public Service Broadcasting’ written by Phil Mongredien

You can visit the band @ www.publicservicebroadcasting.net/​Pseudonymous London duo Public Service Broadcasting hit upon a winning combination of guitars, electronics and vintage public information films for their 2013 debut, Inform-Educate-Entertain. The follow-up focuses on the US-Soviet space race, between 1957 and 1972. It’s a smart move. Archive samples evoke the wonder and majesty of mankind’s most giant leap, and they’re complemented by finely judged soundscapes, from the mournful, static-soaked drone of Fire in the Cockpit (detailing the tragedy of Apollo 1) to the pulsing euphoria of Go! (the successful July 1969 moon landing). Even more powerful is the palpable suspense of The Other Side, as Apollo 8 orbits the moon and loses radio contact on the far side… before regaining it after an agonising wait.

Erin Reilly's (The Guardian) take on 'Twirlgate', is a very well written piece on gender equality in sport, it reminds us why we need to ensure we respect all athletes and ensure the media uphold their dignity.

This year’s Australian Open started fairly well for those interested in the place of women in sport. First, the mixed commentary teams for both men’s and women’s matches was a refreshing change from the usual arrangement where men can comment on women’s sport, but not the other way around. Then, Heather Watson broke one of women’s sport’s taboos by discussing how symptoms of her period had affected her game. The very real physical effects of menstruation, including severe pain for some female athletes, is a challenge rarely recognised. Related: Eugenie Bouchard happy to twirl if men flex muscles at Australian Open But the relief was short-lived. On Wednesday, commentator Ian Cohen, interviewing Eugenie Bouchard, asked her to twirl to show off her outfit. Bouchard complied, and those two steps forward for women’s sport were overshadowed by one big step back. Cohen’s request was entirely inappropriate and unacceptable from a professional sports journalist. It denied Bouchard the respect she deserves as a professional athlete, instead treating her like a little girl. The incident encapsulated many of the ways female athletes are treated differently to their male counterparts. The preoccupation with the way female athletes look – both their physical attractiveness and what they wear – is part of the way women’s sport is treated differently to men’s sport. Where male athletes are judged primarily on their physical prowess, female athletes are expected to be powerful and feminine simultaneously. It treats female athletes as quaint curiosities rather than serious athletes. In post-match interviews, male athletes are usually asked about their game and their opponent, not their outfits. In contrast, female athletes are expected to be able to act in ways that are seen as being feminine, including talking about their clothes, their love life and even, in Bouchard’s case, her fondness for Justin Bieber. It is one of the ways in which a clear distinction is drawn between female and male athletes. By focusing attention on issues other than the match itself, these conversations contribute to the way women’s sport is trivialised. Physical appearance is also a far more significant part of the way female athletes are talked about and promoted compared to their male peers. For athletes like Bouchard and Maria Sharapova, this is a double-edged sword: because they represent some of the western ideals of beauty, they have the opportunity to earn substantially more money in endorsements than some of their equally successful peers. The trade-off, though, is that their on-court success is often secondary to this. The focus on female athletes’ appearance is part of the reason Cohen’s request was so inappropriate. It was also unacceptable because it perpetuates the idea of female bodies as public property. The idea that women’s bodies are often treated as public property is not a new one, nor is it something only experienced by female athletes. Any woman who has been told by a stranger to smile or that their butt looks big or that they have great legs as they walk down the street has experienced this phenomenon. Like street harassment and body shaming, asking Bouchard to twirl was a subtle reminder that female bodies are something to be enjoyed and commented on by others. By acquiescing to the request and playing along, Bouchard does share some responsibility in this. Yes, she is young and is still learning how to deal with the media, but that is not an excuse granted to her male counterparts. Nick Kyrgios received a substantial wave of criticism this week for the way he responded to what was a fairly silly question in a post-match interview. He was called arrogant and cocky. Even thought he is younger than Bouchard, the public expect him to know how to handle media in a way they simply don’t for Bouchard. These lower expectations for female athletes are yet another way women’s sport is treated as inferior to men’s sport. We should expect better from journalists. Cohen’s performance is surely enough to show he’s not the right person for the job. But we should also expect more from female athletes than playing along. What a powerful statement about the seriousness of women’s sport it would be for athletes to say “no” when they are asked ridiculous and belittling questions: no, I will not twirl. No, I will not tell you who made my outfit. No, I will not discuss my love life. Female athletes deserve better than to have their sports treated as a novelty sideshow. While some slow progress is encouraging, it seems that for every two steps forward, there’s one step back.Article from : http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/jan/23/no-i-wont-twirl-what-eugenie-bouchard-should-have-said

The following extract is from an article written by Mehdi Hasan, the political director of the Huffington Post UK.

You and I didn't like George W Bush. Remember his puerile declaration after 9/11 that "either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists"? Yet now, in the wake of another horrific terrorist attack, you appear to have updated Dubya's slogan: either you are with free speech... or you are against it. Either vous êtes Charlie Hebdo... or you're a freedom-hating fanatic.

Yes, the attack was an act of unquantifiable evil; an inexcusable and merciless murder of innocents. But was it really a "bid to assassinate" free speech

Please get a grip. None of us believes in an untrammelled right to free speech. We all agree there are always going to be lines that, for the purposes of law and order, cannot be crossed; or for the purposes of taste and decency, should not be crossed. We differ only on where those lines should be drawn.

Has your publication, for example, run cartoons mocking the Holocaust? No? How about caricatures of the 9/11 victims falling from the twin towers? I didn't think so (and I am glad it hasn't). Consider also the "thought experiment" offered by the Oxford philosopher Brian Klug. Imagine, he writes, if a man had joined the "unity rally" in Paris on 11 January "wearing a badge that said 'Je suis Chérif'" - the first name of one of the Charlie Hebdo gunmen. Suppose, Klug adds, he carried a placard with a cartoon mocking the murdered journalists. "How would the crowd have reacted?... Would they have seen this lone individual as a hero, standing up for liberty and freedom of speech? Or would they have been profoundly offended?" Do you disagree with Klug's conclusion that the man "would have been lucky to get away with his life"?

Let's be clear: I agree there is no justification whatsoever for gunning down journalists or cartoonists. I disagree with your seeming view that the right to offend comes with no corresponding responsibility; and I do not believe that a right to offend automatically translates into a duty to offend.

The former Charlie Hebdo journalist Olivier Cyran argued in 2013, an "Islamophobic neurosis gradually took over" the magazine after 9/11, which then effectively endorsed attacks on "members of a minority religion with no influence in the corridors of power"

As the novelist Teju Cole has observed, "It is possible to defend the right to obscene... speech without promoting or sponsoring the content of that speech."And why have you been so silent on the glaring double standards? Did you not know that Charlie Hebdo sacked the veteran French cartoonist Maurice Sinet in 2008 for making an allegedly anti-Semitic remark? Were you not aware that Jyllands-Posten, the Danish newspaper that published caricatures of the Prophet in 2005, reportedly rejected cartoons mocking Christ because they would "provoke an outcry" and proudly declared it would "in no circumstances... publish Holocaust cartoons"?Muslims, I guess, are expected to have thicker skins than their Christian and Jewish brethren.

I would encourage everyone to have a look at some of the coverage of the Ebola outbreak in West Africa, it's crazy to think how little we manage to reach out to one another even when an epidemic like this has such a devastating impact on a defined geographical area, this article features an illustration by André Carrilho which depicts how the media report on world news, and perhaps how much attention we pay to a world crisis until it appears at our door. Since the first cases of the current Ebola outbreak were reported in March, 3,865 people have died of the diseasein Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The mortality rate for the disease averages around 50 percent, the World Health Organization notes, and there are currently no licensed Ebola vaccines.http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/10/08/ebola-illustration-andre-carrilho_n_5955192.html?utm_hp_ref=world&ir=World&ncid=fcbklnkushpmg00000010